Petting Zoo
by almatheshortstuff
Summary: Somehow, it wasn't that exciting of a Tuesday sitting on the marble floor of the bank while an armed robbery went on. AU/ Rated T for language and for slightly graphic scenes but not really.
1. Chapter 1

Somehow, it wasn't that exciting of a Tuesday sitting on the marble floor of the bank while an armed robbery went on.

"I hate you so much," Ali muttered from her seat on the cold floor. "God, I could go for some chicken noodle soup right now." She sniffled.

"Remember to cover up when you sneeze," James Barnes drawled from opposite her. She wanted to punch him in his perfect beard and see if that pushed the follicles back into his skin. He caught her glare and smirked. She wished him dead with all twelve of her brain cells.

Ali and Barnie (as she called him in her head) worked at a mid-range paper company; Ali as a graphic designer in Marketing, and Barnie in IT. Both were really ironic jobs, but Ali paid most of her utilities and some of her student loans, so she begrudgingly went to work every week. She hated Barnie with all of her being – he was arrogant, cocky, and had seemingly made it his mission to sleep with all of his female coworkers: all 79 of them. Ali wasn't exactly a prude (her argument: define 'prude' to _my face_), but she deigned such predatory men beneath her, and frankly, the women who slept with them were kind of dumb.

At any rate, the two of them had run into each other at the bank before going to work, and were just about to get into an argument when five masked robbers had come in, taken them all hostage, and had them slide their phones across the floor.

"At least Steve isn't here," Barnie muttered, looking around at the robbers, keeping his eyes low. Steve was the dreamboat IT whiz that made Ali drool whenever he passed by. And pass by he did, frequently, as Ali uploaded viruses on her computer on a weekly basis just to get to say hi. He and Barnie were best friends. Ali resented this.

Steve was intense. He had once intervened when Nick Fury from HR had stared at her ass while she fished her olive out of the sink (because it hadn't been in there 10 seconds). Nick was mostly blind, and he was somewhere upwards of half a century old. He'd been waiting to get to the coffee machine, which she'd been blocking with flailing limbs. He had not been staring at her ass (well, maybe he had, but he was so blind she doubted he could see too well), but Steve had very threateningly told him to step away in a voice reminiscent of an old timey cop film. Another time, she saw him get into an altercation because someone had double parked Nebula from Customer Service's car for five minutes. While being intensely jealous of Nebula, Ali had decided to watch from the safety of her own vehicle. She could imagine that had he been there, Steve would probably try to punch his way through the armed zoo animals milling about.

Unconsciously, she concurred with Barnie, even chuckled. (Obviously, one of her brain cells was going to be severely reprimanded, but she couldn't stand to make any more personnel cuts.) Barnie stared at her as if she were an elephant with a trunk growing out its butt. She had never expressed the remotest bit of pleasure or approval at anything he said after their first meeting.

"Hey, so you do smile sometimes," he murmured, giving her a nudge that nearly pushed her over. Monkey came to check on her with a gun. She had to signal that she wasn't going to army crawl her skinny ass out of the bank, collecting footprints and capitalism on her blouse. Monkey left.

"I'm not a Nazi," she grumbled. Barnie shrugged easily.

"I've never seen you smile," he replied frankly.

"How misogynistic of you to assume that just because I don't smile in front of you, a man, I don't smile at all," she snapped back.

"Oh no, you smile for someone else, right?" Barnie replied slowly, with a victorious smirk. Ali wondered how much force was required to knock out healthy mature teeth. The left front tooth was her target, but she didn't want to risk cutting her hand. "He thinks you're cute, you know. But you're not exactly his type."

"I have no idea who you're talking about," Ali muttered, changing tactics. The nose. The nose was much easier to break.

"Steve," Barnie replied bluntly. "Steve's seeing Margaret from Management, you know."

Ali huffed. It was three octaves higher than she wanted. She cleared her throat, and huffed again. "Who said anything about Steve?"

Barnie gave her a bored look that clearly read: "You're shitting me, right?" He didn't have to say anything for it to be vocal.

"So he's cute, and he's got a really nice ass – I wasn't, I didn't-," she muttered.

Barnie interjected before she could continue stammering for the next thirteen minutes – he'd seen her do it, too. "Yeah, well it's none of my business," he sighed breezily. Ali flushed deep maroon, and continued stammering.

"Yeah, yeah, well, y'know what?" she stuttered furiously under her breath. "You're right – it _is none of your business_." He smirked at her, like she amused him, and turned away.

"He wants to know what porn you're downloading onto your computer for you to get so many viruses," Barnie added conversationally. Ali turned a bright red and kept herself company by imagining Barnie dying gruesome deaths.

It was 3 minutes, 34 seconds into their silence when disaster struck.

When Ali sneezed, it was like a freight train going full speed while laden down with a cargo of overfed flamingos. She was famous for it at work. Panda stomped over from behind and put a gun to her head.

"What the fuck was that?" he yelled at her. She wished she could respond – she really did, but she was petrified. Bucky could see it in her face.

She was going to sneeze, again.

Ali's eyes were slits and her mouth and nose were extended hideously as she tried to hold it in. Panda cocked the gun and repeated his question with more ferocity. He was very good at his job.

"She sneezed, man," Bucky finally said, sensing that he could be drenched in brains if he didn't. "That's how she sneezes."

"Yeah, well, make sure she doesn't do it so loud next time," Panda replied lamely, and returned to his post. Ali sneezed into her knees. When she emerged, her eyes were streaming and her nose was a faucet turned way on. She glared at him.

"I could have handled it," Ali grumbled angrily.

"Come on! I just saved your life," Barnie protested. She sniffled, and wiped at her streaming eyes. She only then realized the fate of her jeans. "Here," Barnie said, throwing a handkerchief at her. She mopped up, quiet for once.

"Thanks," she mumbled, just loud enough to make out.

"What for," he drawled, smirking again.

"For the handkerchief, and for, you know, maybe saving my life," she whispered back. She motioned as if to give the handkerchief back, and he told her to hold on to it, quickly, twice.

"Definitely saved your life," he corrected. Ali grumbled something under her breath. Barnie laughed softly.

"So," he said conversationally, "why do you hate me so much?"

Ali thought about it; Barnie watched idly as her face got progressively more pissed.

"You humiliate me every time we talk!" she hissed at him, and a montage of parties and strange work scenarios flashed by in both their minds. He thoughtfully frowned and nodded slowly in agreement.

Once, Ali had been so hungover that she washed her ready-made salad in the sink after pouring in her Italian dressing, and dropped her cherry tomato in the sink. Barnie had strolled up, and helped her pour on fish sauce. All day, she had smelled of rotting fish, especially since he accidentally spilled some on her skirt. Not to mention, Barnie had taken her cherry tomato as payment, after rinsing it off thoroughly.

"Wha-at," he drawled, as Ali's eyes devolved into slits of pure hatred.

Once, she'd accidentally double parked his car for five minutes to go back inside the company building and bring home some work for the weekend, and he'd had her car towed. He hadn't even given her a ride, and she'd had to suffer two hours of public transportation, only to find out that she had gotten on the wrong freaking bus. It dropped her off at a random suburb that looked way too high end for public transportation to even pass through, with a dead phone. She'd had to interrupt a rich family's dinner and ask them to call a cab.

Barnie had actually started to crack up. "It can't be that bad." Ali was making more brain cells, since 12 did not constitute sufficient brain power to kill someone telepathically.

The first time they met was at the company's annual Halloween party. Ali was (again,) a prude, so she didn't believe in unintelligent excuses to wear lingerie out into public. She had gone as Alice, from Wonderland, with a flouncy petticoat and everything. It had been glorious. She had gone to the bathroom, come back out with the back of her skirt tucked into her panties, and had a nice conversation with Barnie, thought he was charming, and walked away. He was the one person who could have stopped disaster. When she walked away, she saw that he was having a stroke or something laughing, wondered what had cracked him up so hard, and hated him for the remainder of their time as colleagues.

Presently, they were surprised by a reappearance from Panda. He had his gun cocked at Barnie, and asked in a low voice, "What's so funny, huh?"

Barnie couldn't talk, despite the gravitas of the situation.

"It was me," Ali interjected, her voice cracking from tension. She cleared her throat. "He – he was remembering the first time we met – I had my skirt tucked in my panties," she explained, feeling humiliated and wondering if this wasn't actually just a setup to further humiliate her. Barnie cracked up again, and actually started crying from mirth, the jackass. He moved to wipe his eye, when a gun went off.

It wasn't Panda, but it hit Barnie in the left shoulder, and blood splurted out, as if – no, well, _because _he'd been shot.

"Holy shit!" Ali screamed, her heart beating so fast if she'd gotten a paper cut, she would have bled out in 30 seconds, tops. "What the hell was that for?" Monkey looked as abashed as he could with a monkey mask on. Ali immediately took off her blouse (she had a tank top underneath) and wrapped it as tight as she could around Barnie's arm. He was breathing hard, and grabbed her shoulder while she did so, smearing blood on it. Both of them were suddenly sweating – Barnie probably from the pain and panic, Ali from _holding onto a gunshot wound, for fuck's sake_.

Panda looked around at Monkey, unimpressed.

"Dude," he echoed Ali, emphatically, "what the hell was that for?"

"I thought he was going for your gun!" Monkey protested in a high-pitched voice.

"He was laughing his ass off," Ali yelled, pressing down on Barnie's shoulder with even pressure. Monkey came running over at a jog, while Rabbit covered for both him and Panda.

"Yeah, he was laughing because this lady had her skirt in her panties when they first met," Panda explained, helpfully. Ali's 13 brain cells had gone into overdrive at this point, helping Barnie, so she didn't even really notice.

"Yeah, dick move," she muttered instead, glaring at Monkey.

"Yeah, dick move," Barnie mumbled in wholehearted agreement.

"Dick move," Panda agreed gravely. "What do you need, panties lady?"

Ali looked up from her first aid, surprised at her identifier, and briefly let go of Barnie's shoulder. He cried out and grabbed her forearm when a fresh wave of blood splashed both of them.

"Oops," she muttered, returning to saving Barnie's life. "He obviously needs first aid – from an actual medical practitioner. You're gonna have to call in an ambulance."

This time, Monkey cocked his gun at Ali's head. His hand was trembling slightly.

"O-or you could just let us go," Barnie suggested.

At that moment, Tiger and Falcon came back from the vault with two large trays on wheels, topped with bags of cash. "We need to go!" they yelled, hee hawing and yippee-ki-yaying and everything. Before they left, however, Monkey threw a bundle of cash that had fallen out and someone's iphone at Ali. She grabbed the cash, and was struck in the side with the phone.

She immediately called for an ambulance while someone from across the room called the cops. Barnie kept repeating something while she was on the phone.

"Get your ass back down and shut up – I'm saving your life here, asshole," she all but yelled at him, before giving the nice lady the address. When she hung up, Barnie repeated it.

"That's my phone," he said, his eyes glazed over with pain. She gave it to him, and he pocketed it.

The paramedics arrived sometime later, checked the wound, and loaded him onto their ambulance. Ali walked them out all the way there, fretfully, and didn't expect to hear from Barnie ever again – or at least not until next week. The paramedic made to close the ambulance door, but then swung it open again.

"He's asking for you," she said briskly. Ali fiddled with her thumbs. "Are you coming or not?" the lady asked, and Ali couldn't tell her that she'd left her phone inside, so she just got on. After an uncomfortable ambulance ride she stayed in the waiting room for the duration of Barnie's surgery. The adrenaline had worn off, and she was a shivering mess. It was even worse without her phone. The cops visited, asked for her account of the robbery (humiliating, all over again), and returned her phone. She almost cried, then.

After Barnie's surgery, she was admitted into his hospital room.

"Hey," she said gently. He looked like he loved pain medication, which he probably preferred to the alternative. "How's – how's your shoulder?" she asked.

"Hey," he agreed. "The doctors are optimistic. Thanks for saving my life."

"No problem," she squeaked, and cleared her throat. "No problem," she repeated quickly, in a normal voice. "I saw that they caught the robbers, on the news," she said conversationally.

"Great," Barnie said, with a dopey smile. "Hey, look – I just wanted to apologize for being a prick. I just think it's cute to see you riled up, but I probably took it too far. Sorry. Oh, also, sorry about that time I had your car towed – I really didn't know it was yours."

Wow. That pain medication must also double as a truth serum, or a better-person-maker-potion.

"It's – it's fine," she said graciously. "You're less of a prick than the guys who pointed guns at us." Barnie laughed. A nurse informed Ali that her time was nearly up.

"I guess I'll see you around, Barnes," she said, as she made to leave.

"It's Bucky," he called from behind. Ali looked around, and smiled.

"Oh, no," she said lightly, "it's Barnie, and the moment you're better, I will make your life hell."

"I'll look forward to it," Bucky replied with a smile.

* * *

Author's notes: This is an AU rendition of both of them, so they're a bit of out of character. I was watching a show with a similar setting at 3 in the morning and wrote half of this up in about half an hour. I might consider writing some more in this AU, so let me know if you'd like to see more! Thanks for reading!

Edit: Made an edit to include more familiar faces. :)


	2. Chapter 2

"Nebula is an alien," Ali announced conversationally as she stepped into the hospital room, and handed Barnes his hankie. If he was surprised by her abrupt interruption into what was obviously a highly intimate pie time for him, he didn't show it. Instead he immediately wiped off a couple crumbs with the hankie, and finished chewing. Ali waited, tapping her feet impatiently.

"She sent me pie," he replied drily at last, "She's literally the nicest person I know – she works in customer service and volunteered at a teenage suicide hotline for years." He took another thoughtful pie bite. "Why'd you think that?"

"She told me this morning, and I thought it deserved noting that either she's telling the truth or she's clinically insane. Seeing as she has steadily replaced all of her flesh with piercings over the past three decades, I'm inclined to believe her," Ali explained, just as flatly. "How's the arm?"

"Oh, it's completely dead, which is really rare and unfortunate, and my doctor's been showing me prosthetic catalogues. I'm scheduled for amputation day after tomorrow," Bucky replied conversationally. "Would you like pie? The nurses hate crumbs in the sheets, and I need someone to blame."

Ali grunted, and sat on the chair beside Barnes' cot.

"There are no more plates, so you can pretend your other hand is one," he said as he clumsily cut her a slice. "I do, however, have a fork for you. Spill as many crumbs as you like."

Ali was more a cake person, really. She decided not to tell Barnes until she'd had her third slice.

* * *

Once, Bucky had found an intensely hungover Alizeh rinsing the dressing out of her ready-made salad. He'd impulsively decided that he should be her saving grace despite knowing nothing about food, except how to eat it. He had found some fish sauce, which he'd enjoyed once in an oriental dipping sauce (made by a professional), and thought it would be the next best thing. Alizeh had agreed, and he'd done the honors, since she wasn't too steady on her feet. Maybe Alizeh wasn't hungover. Maybe she was just drunk. It was only 11:30, but he'd seen people get drunk at earlier hours. At any rate, she grabbed his forearm to steady herself and made him splash sauce on her skirt.

He'd apologized, and would have offered to buy her lunch, if she hadn't left to go throw up in the bathroom. Bucky decided that the least he could do was clean up after her, and discovered a cherry tomato in the sink that he presumed was hers. He rinsed it off well (like, really really well) and popped it in his mouth the moment Valenteri returned, wiping her mouth on her forearm and looking as if she wanted to wrap her fingers around his neck.

After that, the only thing Ali could do was make several visits to Barnes' hospital room and help him pick out a new fake arm. One day, she found Steve and Margaret leaning over the catalogue, too.

"Bye," she squeaked, her operating system failing and very slowly rebooting at the sight of three surprised faces staring soullessly at her.

"No – wait, Steve, go catch her," Barnes barked as Ali fled. Steve chased her down the hall and grabbed her gently by the scruff of her jacket. She was pretty sure that her toes only skimmed the floor as he led her back to the room, which he'd deny later.

"You're all colleagues, and while I cannot vouch for your mental age, you're all adults, so you can learn to get along," Bucky drawled, not even looking up as he flipped through the catalogue.

"You can set me back on my feet now," Ali said to Steve, who lowered her down as if he were terrified of her splintering. She didn't understand how he managed to fit his massive shoulders and his terrific – dammit – ass in the doorway, but he did, and they settled awkwardly around Barnes.

"So if I spend 100 grand, I can get a fully functioning bionic arm that actually reads my shoulder muscles, my brainwaves, and my horoscope. For 50 bucks, I can get a mannequin arm with floppy fingers," Bucky mused aloud. "Well, I'm torn on the matter, but since we split the money that Monkey threw us 8-2, I can afford something halfway decent, like a crane – the machine, not the bird."

"You should have the rest of the money," Ali blurted out. "I mean, I only took the two because you said to, and it's not like I have any pressing matters at the moment – I have most of a roof and half a bed to sleep in every night, and my car still runs every day, unless it's really cold or really hot, and on days like that I can jog to work or call in sick or – _look_." She took a deep breath. "Take the money. Get yourself an arm that can actually do more than awkwardly scratch your balls."

"Although I'm sure you'd love that, too, wouldn't you," Steve asked wryly.

"Oh, definitely," Barnes agreed emphatically. "It'd be hilarious. Thanks, though. I appreciate it, Valenteri."

"It's Ali."

* * *

Once, Bucky's Nana had gotten into a car accident, and he had to go and pick her up from the hospital. Some asshole had double parked his car, so he'd immediately called to have it towed. Luckily, there was a towing company just five minutes down the street. Just as he was driving away, he saw in his rear-view mirror that Alizeh had dropped her bag, and its contents had spilled out. Any other day, he would have stopped to help her pick it all up.

The next day, he headed over to the kitchen for a cup of joe with Steve, when he ran into Alizeh on her way out. She was talking to Mantis from Accounting (whose mother was a fanatic of Hong Kong action films and thought naming her children after animals was acceptable), with a slightly manic look in her eyes.

"I rode that bus for two hours and had to take a cab back for another hour," she was moaning, when she spotted Bucky. Immediately her face twisted in pure hatred, which confused him. She didn't even flinch when she closed her fist around her paper coffee cup and splashed herself with piping hot coffee.

"My bumper fell off, you asshole," she snarled, and shoved past them. Mantis followed at a jog. A full five seconds later, a scream sounded from down the hall – the heat had probably gotten to Alizeh at last.

"What was that?" Steve asked, bewildered. They watched Mantis throw Alizeh over her shoulders and run for the bathroom, with Alizeh screaming the entire time. People didn't even look up from their phones as they sidestepped the two.

"I think I had her car towed yesterday," Bucky said thoughtfully, as the two headed into the kitchen.

"She double parked you?" Steve snorted.

"Yeah, well, don't go threatening to punch her window in – she'll _really_ love me then," Bucky muttered.

* * *

It took a while for Barnes to get used to the new arm, but he returned back to work straightaway, as he could work just as quickly with only his right arm. Ali only knew that he was having trouble because he kept bumping into her and bothering her, to tie his shoelaces, to fold up his sleeves, to hold his phone while he fumbled something important. He always had something to give her in compensation, though – a cup of joe, a small milk caramel, a pretty marble he'd picked up.

"What is it," Ali barked amiably without looking up from her computer screen when they met for the fourth time that day. Soon, he'd have her zipping up his fly for him.

"I need someone to open this jar of pickles, and I've broken more jars than I care to count," Barnes deadpanned, in much the same friendly tone as Ali.

"Where's Steve?" she asked, sparing him a glance.

"Off somewhere fixing – or breaking – Peggy's computer, I don't know," Barnes said nonchalantly. Ali opened the jar with a satisfying pop. "Thanks. I came because you're the sixth strongest person I know."

"It is officially the apocalypse," Ali muttered good-naturedly, and returned to her work.

"Me and Natasha are making potato salad if you want some later," Barnes called from the doorway. It only occurred to Ali on her fourth spoonful of salad that Natasha could lift 250 pounds on a bad day, and it was highly suspicious of Barnes to come find her all the way at her desk to open a pickle jar.

"Why'd you come to me?" she asked him, raising her eyebrow at Natasha, who ate carbs and was still the apotheosis of female-kind embodied in a .3% body-fat, 5'2", redhead.

"You're awfully naïve if you think Natasha doesn't break all her jars, too," Barnes snorted.

"It's true," Natasha said seriously. "Anyway, I don't use canned goods – I make my own pickles. Bucky here just caught me off guard today."

Ali turned to look quizzically at Barnes. He shrugged and took his time eating another bite before he replied.

"You don't want the pickles?" he asked, aggressively. "I can dig them out of your salads for you if you don't want 'em."

"Jeez," Ali muttered, but exchanged small smiles with Natasha.

After that, he kept popping up during the week to open his smuggled bottle of beer (he had one for her, too), to help with his energy bar wrapper (he had one for her, too), and to hold open the menu while he figured out what to order Friday night.

"How the hell did I end up having dinner with you?" she demanded in a whisper, hating herself for checking Barnes out in his tux. He was gorgeous, and she resented it. Barnes chuckled drily, not looking up.

"You should have at least seen _that_ one coming," he drawled, and finally decided on the steak. "If it helps, I think you look beautiful." Ali looked down at herself. She was also done up in an evening gown, which she was not expecting.

"How did that happen?" she demanded, her whisper shrill enough that some of the nearby diners turned to them. To her utter surprise and chagrin, she actually enjoyed the dinner, albeit very reluctantly. The food was delicious, the ambience was great, and Barnes' company was astonishingly enjoyable. She didn't even mind that his fork and knife work was impeccable, despite the regularity at which he'd required her assistance over the week.

"This was not a date," she warned angrily as they split the bill.

"This was not a date," she warned angrily as they stopped at the ice cream parlor and shared favorite flavors.

"This was not a date," she warned angrily as he dropped her off in front of her apartment (via taxi; he couldn't drive yet, and they'd gotten into the champagne).

"Of course not," Barnes agreed breezily. "I'm going to ask you out to a piano bar next Tuesday, but only because Steve is surprisingly accomplished at instruments for someone of his finger width."

"I might think about it on Tuesday, but no surprises," Ali replied in what she hoped was a cool, neutral tone, and hurried inside.

"This was not a date," she warned angrily as she lay wide awake in bed, unable to fall asleep.

* * *

Thanks for reading! I hope you guys liked the second installment to what I think will be a 3 or 4-chapter story. Feel free to tell me what you thought of it!


	3. Chapter 3

Thank you to Rogue Reader and Sage Nicholson for leaving reviews! I'm really happy that y'all think this is a funny fic. Therefore, I am sorry to inform you that this is the most serious fic I have written in my entire life.

With that said, the inspiration for the setting was indeed inspired by the Office, but mostly it's just the funky part of my brain.

Leggo (my eggos)!

* * *

"It was not a date," Ali growled to Wanda and Jessica at brunch. The other two wore sunglasses. Jessica because her job teaching first graders had given her a split personality, which she combated with alcohol. She was either hungover or still drunk, and it was 10 in the morning. Wanda had on sunnies because it was a source of unequivocal shame that she loved, let alone did, brunch. Being a top-notch white hat hacker with her hipster boyfriend, she had developed a strange list of criteria for badassery. Ali didn't fault her for having strange principles. If anything, it made her more human, since both she and Vision seemed more machine than human at times.

"You keep telling yourself that," Wanda drawled as she tore into her eggs benedict.

"Mmhm," Jessica groaned unintelligibly, drowning her shame-mimosa and motioning for another one to the nearest waiter.

"Look, I was just helping him out, and he paid me back for it all is what happened," Ali explained, stealing the mimosa before it reached Jessica. It was her fifth, but she still glared at Ali from behind her sunnies. Ali was immune to her glares, and enjoyed the drink with a soft hmm.

"No one asked, princess," Jessica snapped at her, motioning for another one. "You're over-explaining, which means it was a date."

"Toaster fuck," Ali swore under her break, at which both Wanda and Jessica snorted. "I don't _like_ him, not like that – he's slept with all of the female employees, except for three."

"Well, at least he's talented in that aspect," Wanda noted lightly with a slight smile. Ali swiped at her, and she dodged.

"Have you done a fact check? He slept with 20 people from your company?" Jessica asked skeptically.

"Ooh, look at the detective go," Wanda said as she stuffed her face with bacon. "Who's teaching first grade shitheads now?"

"Still me," Jessica muttered as Ali forced her to eat something. "Anyway, it's the 21st century – it's not alright to slut shame anymore."

"You would know," Ali snorted as she spooned salmon into Jessica's half-reluctant mouth. She sighed. "I'm not slut-shaming him. I'm just – I don't want to be another head on his wall, another conquest."

"And is that what your gut tells you?" Wanda prompted.

"I've been wrong before is all," Ali grunted.

"Haven't we all," Jessica said, smiling, this time for real.

When you had a psychopathic manipulative abuser of an ex-boyfriend, everybody else's horrible ex-boyfriends paled in comparison.

Ali opened her mouth.

Ali closed her mouth.

Jessica knew what she was thinking, so she scowled at the two empty glasses Ali had stolen from her. "You're paying for those two, just so you know," she snapped irritably.

"Hey, if it keeps you from going to the ER to get your stomach pumped – by all means," Ali replied, putting her hands up in surrender.

"You can't stop me," Jessica declared stubbornly.

"You both have some weird ass priorities," Wanda laughed.

"Says the person who's in denial about her brunch addiction," Ali retorted.

"Wha-at," Wanda said touchily. "Vis likes my quirks."

"Damn it," Ali muttered under her breath, realization dawning on her. Her bite of salmon fell off her fork. "It was a date."

* * *

**1...**

"Hey, Valenteri," Barnes called just as the elevator doors opened.

Ali swerved away and went by the stairs. She hated stairs.

**2...**

"Want lunch?" Barnes almost screamed as Ali dumped her half-drunk coffee and flung herself into the bathroom.

At least she was getting in her cardio.

**3 strikes you're out!**

"I'm pregnant. She's yours," Barnes said as he rounded the corner, upsetting Mantis and Luis, head of Marketing. "Wait – I thought Ali just passed by."

"She threw herself out the window," Luis supplied helpfully. Mantis was screaming with laughter. Barnes stormed over to the window and peered out.

"It's the third fucking floor!" he yelled out, and Mantis dissolved onto the floor. When Barnes left them, Luis was banging the wall, while Mantis had a fit of mirth.

"You guys told him I went out the window?" Ali asked, as she came out of a cramped cabinet. Luis and Mantis were too busy not being able to breathe to answer. "Y'all are weird," she muttered, as she, too, left them.

**4 balls gets you to first base, though, so keep trying.**

"You've obviously made up your mind about me," Barnes said, cornering her in the break room while Ali was enjoying a meatball sub. She looked up, guilty and sauce-covered, and Barnes threw a wad of napkins in her face before taking a seat. "That's it, then? You're not even going to get to know me?"

Ali chewed furiously as if she had something to say. Really, she just hated herself for getting caught with her mouth full. She eventually swallowed, opened her mouth, and had a long drink of her sprite.

Barnes checked his watch.

"Look," she said, finally. "We're just really different people."

"_That's_ what you took four minutes of my life to say?" Barnes demanded, and she saw the corner of his lip twitch in amusement despite himself. "I'm sorry you've decided that, but enjoy your life and your sub, I guess."

She watched him leave and took another colossal bite of her sub. If he thought that telling her to enjoy her sub would reverse-psychology her into putting it down, he had another thing coming. Not to mention human conflict took a lot of energy and made her hungry.

* * *

Despite wanting to make a clean break of things, rejecting Barnes gnawed on Ali's mind for the rest of the day and then some. The problem with that was that it spilled over into her meeting with Luis the next morning.

The meeting somehow became a therapy session. Ali lay on the ratty old couch, soaking in its 50-year history, which made it older than the company. It had probably come with the building. She was getting an ab workout trying to keep her head from touching it.

"Your problem is the window guy? He stalk you? Cheat on you? Kill someone with that awesome metal arm of his?" Luis asked, rapidfire.

"What? No!" Ali snorted, sitting up. "I've just – it's just I've heard a lot of horror stories about him – he's dated at least fifteen women here. Hope Pym, the security guard? She won't even give him the time of day."

"Cool cool cool – but do you know when they dated?" Luis asked.

"What."

"No, it's just, I mean, Hope and he dated in high school, right – they were in the same school district, y'know? What if like, ten of those girls were from elementary school?" he continued, helpfully. Ali decided to malfunction.

"Peanut butter jelly – SHIT!"

* * *

Leave more reviews! They bring joy into my otherwise meaningless life!

If it makes you happy to not leave me reviews, you do you, I guess.

Till next time.

Toodleloo!


	4. Chapter 4

Totally forgot to address the people doing the R&R, whom I've got mad respects for.

Rogue Reader - I... I honestly cannot believe Bucky fell for that either. My only explanation is that Steve is a punk, and before he buffed up into the Michelin tires man, he used to slip into small crevices and surprise Bucky all the time.

hi - omg I think you're really futzing cute, too

* * *

Ali was never good at apologizing, especially when she was totally in the wrong. She realized this when she bought an apology pie and accidentally ate it in her car to ease her anxiety. Even after this realization, it took all of her self-control to leave a slice for Barnes.

"Where's the rest of the pie?" Barnes asked, not amused, when Ali presented him with a slice only slightly thicker than the plastic fork.

"I… I'm built like a goat, okay? I get anxious, I eat," Ali admitted, her voice shrill. Barnes took the pie, but he looked suspicious.

"I thought you didn't want anything to have to do with me – you made _that_ very clear when you jumped out of a window rather than talk to me," he said, finishing the slice in one and a half bites.

"I was actually in the cabinet-," Ali muttered under her breath.

"_What?_"

"-But not important," she continued quickly. "What's… what's important is that I want to apologize for my behavior, and for making up my mind on something I heard."

"What made you avoid me, anyway?" Barnes asked, getting every last bit of crust. He really liked pie.

"Well, I'm friends with Hope, in security, and she… well, she hates your guts," Ali admitted. Barnes chuckled as he scraped microscopic crumbs onto his fork.

"I don't blame her," he laughed.

"What?" Ali asked, now genuinely curious.

"I… no, I can't," Barnes said, but he was still smiling. "Hope would murder me if she knew I told you."

"Oh, c'mon. I got you pie," Ali pleaded.

"You gave me half a slice worth of pie, and ate the rest yourself," Barnes pointed out. "Alright – just, look, you can't tell anyone, alright? If anyone finds out, I – you have to date me."

"I – well, just – what now? Fine – can't help – deal," Ali bumbled, articulately.

"Hope and I were dating in high school, and we had a field trip to a Quaker farm – you know, to give us the pilgrim experience. We were having fun, and I thought we were in mud, and tipped her over, face first. Apparently, well, let's just say: we were _not_ in mud," Barnes said in a low voice.

"NO WAY," a familiar voice said from behind Ali, and they both turned to Luis. "YOU'RE JOKING. YOU PUSHED HOPE INTO COW PATS? HEY, HOPE!"

If Ali's life was a mockumentary, the camera would have panned onto Hope Pym's furious face from across the room, and then back to Barnes and Ali, who stood there, stricken.

"Well, Valenteri, thanks for the pie, pick you up at 8," Barnes said, hurriedly handing Ali his plate, which was cleaner than if he had washed it. He disappeared instantly, which was impressive for such a big guy. Ali dropped the plate – it was a paper one – and ran as fast as her legs would take her. She actually considered throwing herself out the window, for real this time.

That was why Ali and Barnes went on a second date.

Barnes picked Ali up at 8 that night and took her party crashing.

"YOU NEEDED A DATE TO A LASER TAG BAT MITSVAH?" Ali yelled over the music.

"WHA-AT?" Barnes yelled back.

"NEVER MIND," ALI yelled back, turning from red to blue in the face.

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?"

"I SAID NEVERMIND. NEVER MI – YOU'RE SCREWING WITH ME, AREN'T YOU, YOU SON OF A TOASTER FUCKING GRANOLA BAR!" Ali finished her insult to ringing in her ears and a stunning silence. Sometime during her insults someone had turned the music off. Barnes was crying tears of mirth, slapping his knee and giving himself breathing problems.

"Hi guys," Steve said woodenly as he approached with a balding Jewish man. "Thanks for coming. This is Dr. Abraham Erskine, whose granddaughter is coming of age."

Ali smiled instantly as a defense mechanism. Her only problem was that it was a beauty pageant smile, and Steve and Abraham both took a step back out of fear. Barnes was still laughing too hard for his senses to work, and was probably unaware of being in a room full of people. When Barnes finally calmed down, and Dr. Erskine was brave enough to speak to Ali's pageant face, they all sat down at the table.

"I apologize about the music – my granddaughter is going through a Swedish house phase," Dr. Erskine said in a slight German accent.

"It's fine, we all had one of those," Barnes laughed good naturedly. Ali, who was still going through her own phase, shut up and smiled.

"How do you know Steve?" she asked, clearing her throat while smiling predatorily.

"Doctor Erskine here saved my life on multiple occasions – he was my pediatrician, and he stepped in when my father passed to help me go to school," Steve said, shining with admiration.

"Yeah, that was about the time when Steve had a pilgrim wedding on a Quaker farm that held up legally and he had to annul two years ago when he found out his "wife" was getting married to a lawyer from New York," Barnes said, and they all laughed.

"Is that the same trip where you tipped over Hope into the cow pats?" Ali asked, without thinking.

"Oh, look," Dr. Erskine said, morosely. "The food's here."

After that nuclear accident of a date, it was only fair that Ali invite Barnes over to her friend Jane Foster's intern's garden barbeque party.

"Hey Ali!" Darcy squealed, and embraced Ali. "Thanks for making it! There are cocktails on your left, help yourselves to the barbeque to the right. I have my intern frying stuff up, so just go and ask for whatever you want."

Jane was drunk.

"Darcy's a vegan," she whispered furiously over a bucket of margaritas, the type you can get in Las Vegas. "And that's not her intern – that's my new boyfriend. He's Norwegian, I think he calls himself Thor. He doesn't speak a _word_ of English, but he's got the bod of a god."

Ali and Barnes glanced over at the enormous mountain of a man at the grill, who caught them looking and waved pleasantly. He said something very quickly in Norwegian, which somehow sounded Shakespearean.

"Bod of a god," Ali heard Barnes say very quickly, three times, under his breath.

"That's what broke you?" she asked skeptically as she fed her vegan turkey steak to the neighbor's dog. They left ten minutes later to get some actual hot dogs when the neighbor, an old man wearing, well, practically nothing emerged from his home to yell angrily at Darcy. Apparently someone had nearly killed his dog with tofu.

As Ali and Barnes left, Darcy's neighbor threw on some coals to fry up some steaks and thoroughly upset the vegans.

"FOOD FIGHT!" Jane screamed, and fell off her patio chair.

* * *

I've gotta admit I cracked myself up writing this one.

R&R

Stay fabulous, folks


	5. Chapter 5

wine-and-crocodiles - I'm really sorry that you had such a terrible day, but also really grateful that this silly story could help in some small way. I hope you've had better days since then, and that they'll progressively get better. :)

* * *

The very air in New Jersey was generally off-putting. Townville, which had a population of about negative 300, was unbearably fresh, and articulately flavored with what smelled like agricultural refuse. Ali tended to call such, 'shit.'

"Shit," she said, eloquently.

Beside her, Bucky was having respiratory problems – again. He was there because their horrible date-off were still going on, although it was mostly just the two of them hanging out. Nothing remotely romantic had happened, and Ali was both relieved and a little disappointed.

"Stop laughing," she snapped. "My car just stopped – that is not funny."

Bucky made loud wheezing sounds, and slapped her on the shoulder.

"I swear to God-," she fumed, struggling with her seatbelt and exiting the car.

"Hey!" Bucky called, his breathing still labored. "Where are you going?"

Ali didn't answer, as she was too busy kicking the shit out of her car. To her surprise, it did not work. She dived back into the car and tried to get it to start back up, which it resolutely refused.

"Argghhh," she groaned, throwing her head back in despair and hitting the chair at a painful angle. She curled up around the steering wheel, whining in pain, and pressed the horn long and hard. There were no cars around them, except for those parked, but a couple dogs started barking.

"Hey hey," Bucky said, patting her back soothingly. "It's okay – you've got me, remember?"

Ali looked up hopefully.

"You know how to fix cars?"

"Nope!" Bucky said, whipping out his phone. "I know next to nothing about them. However, I do have the towing company number, and they're already familiar with your car, so."

He made the call, while Ali lamented her spot at her local Zumba class. That was where the two of them had been heading in the first place. Because Ali lived in a seedy little neighborhood, most of those attending her Zumba class were senior women who somehow still had boyfriends, largely depressed housewives, and the smell of powerful cleaning agents that did not quite mask the smell of despair and decay. It was the perfect place to take Bucky. They were even in too bright neon exercise apparel, complete with headbands, sure to give anyone who saw them a minor stroke or temporary loss of eyesight.

"Do you want to at least grab some dinner?" Bucky asked. "I saw a diner a block down."

"Yeah – why not," Ali sighed as she grabbed her bag. "Might as well show off our threads, right?"

Bucky laughed drily as he got out of the car. Almost all of his upper back was exposed, and it cheered Ali up that he looked like a jackass, just a little.

At the diner, they got breakfast for dinner, which constituted a couple of greasy eggs, greasier sausages, and what could not have been a freshly made waffle. The coffee, however, was sublime, and the old lady serving the meal was so adorable Ali couldn't find it in her to leave anything uneaten.

"Anyway, where were you going to take me, dressed like this?" Bucky asked, after their third cup of coffee.

"Mt. Everest," Ali replied carelessly.

"Ballroom dancing," Bucky guessed. "Uhm, Crossfit, frog catching, the supermarket."

"Wow, not even close. I was going to escort you to a Zumba class."

Bucky chuckled low under his breath.

"You never fail to amaze me," he said, sounding admiring.

"You sound like you wouldn't mind going," Ali said suspiciously. Bucky shrugged.

"Honestly? It wouldn't be the worst date I've ever had," he admitted.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah – have you ever been to a pound and gotten fleas?" Bucky asked, a challenge glimmering in his eyes.

"No. Have you ever been in a dark escape room with someone with bad eyesight and anger management problems?" Ali countered.

"A marathon during which I had to carry her for half the way."

"An improv class where all the participants had flu. I got the flu. They gave me the flu."

"Someone else's kid's soccer game."

"A quilt-a-thon."

Bucky blinked a couple times, but did not comment.

"Uh, fusion Chinese-French food that ended up being snails and frogs," he said, sounding triumphant. Ali knew it was the last one he had in his arsenal, and unleashed her greatest weapon and biggest secret.

"Ventriloquy show."

"Who – how – what – _why?_" Bucky asked, and laughed incredulously. "Who the hell have you been _dating_, Ali?" he asked, emphatically, and he looked worried. Whether he was worried _for_ her or _because_ of her was lost on her.

"It doesn't matter," Ali said with a shrug.

"I was wondering why 'laser-tag bat mitzvah' didn't come up," Bucky said, smoothing back his hair. "No wonder you didn't want to date anyone." Ali shrugged again, and the two finished their coffee in silence.

"Well, we could call it a night, or I can ask you out to another horrible date spot," Bucky said, once only the coffee dregs and greasy indigestion were left.

"Somewhere you had in mind?" Ali asked, a little wearily. While she had won their competition to see who had dated weirder people, it also left her, understandably, a little depressed.

"I promised to take you to see Steve play itty bitty instruments with his massive fingers, didn't I?" Bucky said, with a smile.

"Do you think that's wise?" Ali said, as she followed him out of the diner. "I mean, I'll probably just stare at his ass all night."

"I _will_ report you to HR for sexual harassment," Bucky snorted, walking a little bit ahead of her. "And besides, have you seen _me?_" Ali, perhaps for the first time ever, had to check out his ass. It was not as terrific as Steve's, but it was pretty great, too.

"Bod of a god, bod of a god, bod of a god," she repeated under her breath, very quickly. Bucky laughed hysterically, even as they piled into a cab.

* * *

Steve was very, very into blues music, as it turned out.

"Oh," Bucky sighed as he led Ali inside to piano and harmonica music. "That's depressing."

"He's actually really good, though," Ali whispered loudly, and Steve looked up. He shouldn't have, because he lost his concentration and fumbled his way through the next couple bars. Maybe their outfits had caused him to have a minor stroke, as was Ali's desired effect on the general public. Seeing it happen to Steve made her sad, however, and a little sorry. Ali and Bucky largely ignored the staring crowd, none of whom cried out in pain or in shock at their loss of eyesight. While the two got comfortable at the bar and ordered drinks, Steve announced he'd be taking a little break, and made his way over.

"That was really good, Steve," Ali said by means of greeting, since he seemed a little flustered.

"Hi, Ali. Thanks," he said distractedly, and turned to Bucky. "What on earth are you doing here?" he demanded.

"Hi to you, too, piano man," Bucky said, sipping his pink raspberry cosmo through a sugar-coated silly straw. Ali had got it for him, while he'd ordered an old fashioned for her. "Hey, you're right – this isn't half bad," he said to Ali. She sipped her drink, too, and nodded approvingly.

Steve got himself a beer.

"You two want to explain the uh," he said resignedly, as he pointed back and forth from one outfit to the other, unsure which was worse.

"I tried to take him to a Zumba class, but the gods deemed him unworthy and killed my car," Ali said, easy, now that she had half a buzz going.

"And you knew that I was here how?" he sighed, chugging half his beer in one go.

"You date Margaret "Penny" Carter, who would be unable to hold her liquor if we fed it to her bottlecap by bottlecap. She told me that night, y'know, after we went Vietnamese waltzing," Bucky explained smugly.

"Was that the day the bald lady made you carry her for a quarter of a marathon and then dragged you to the dance floor? Yeah, I remember," Steve grunted.

"She said she was 61 years old, but her skin was really smooth – just like this baby," Bucky said helpfully to Ali as he finished his cosmo.

"I won't tell anyone, if that's what's bothering you," Ali declared as she too finished her drink. "Pinky promise!"

"I will make no such promise, as on your birthday I am going to post it on all of the SNS platforms known to mankind, even the ones where English is not the main language," Bucky snorted, as he got himself another fan favorite, a strawberry daiquiri.

Steve signed resignedly as he got up from his seat, rejecting Ali's pinky, which he was sure would break if he tried anything as physical as pinky promising. Ali watched his back as he walked back to the piano and played the least incriminating songs he knew, damn the requests.

"Hey," Bucky said in awe. "You didn't stare at his ass."

"HR knows my number," Ali quipped quickly, but in truth, Bucky had ruined it for her. It was a shame, since Steve's ass could have been a national monument. She believed the United States of America should get it enlisted in the UNESCO world heritage list, which she would later tell Bucky over her third old fashioned.

* * *

Sometime after bad date #9, Ali met up with Jessica and Wanda for brunch again.

"You want to explain the dates you've been going on all over New Jersey?" Jessica asked, this time drinking a bloody Mary, since she was clearly hungover.

"I took him Zumba dancing – you might want to rethink your usage of the word 'date'," Ali said, swinging her fork threateningly in the air.

"My bad, my bad," Jessica apologized with a grunt. "You really do hate him, don't you?"

"Hey!" Wanda protested. "Don't knock it till you've tried it! Zumba's actually really fun and it totally activates your core."

"Christ," Jessica muttered. "If someone says that word again, I swear I'm gonna puke."

"What – Zumba?" Ali asked. Jessica never puked – she was too seasoned an alcoholic for that. She did hit Ali upside the head, however, bestowing upon her a well-earned bump.

"If you're not dating him, why are you traipsing all over kingdom come with him?" Wanda asked evenly.

"We have a bad date-off going on – he took me to a laser tag bat mitzvah, and since then we've been trying to one up each other," Ali explained.

"And where has he taken you?" Wanda asked patiently.

"Foreign movies cinema, his cousin's baby shower, rock climbing – he's afraid of heights, and most recently, after my car broke down, a car dealership," Ali reeled off.

"You're shitting me, right?" Jessica demanded loudly, before she cackled into her drink. A bunch of scandalized baby moms glared at the table, and Ali tried to hide herself behind her French toast.

"What Jessica means to say," Wanda drawled loudly over Jessica's continued derisive snorts, "is that it seems to me that this Bucky guy wants to spend actual time with you."

"Whattaya mean?" Ali demanded defensively.

"He took you to an intercultural experience, albeit probably a boring one, he's introduced you to the family, he's showed you a vulnerable aspect of himself, and he is genuinely helpful without being overbearing," Jessica reeled off, before she set herself howling with laughter. A nearby table of elderly women eventually had to whack her with a cane to get her to shut up.

She found herself saying it a lot in recent times, but for continuity sake, Ali muttered under her breath, "Shit."

* * *

I love it when there are women who are voodoo psychics about other people dating and then are completely utterly lost when it comes to relationships themselves. (I have to admit that I am one.)

R&R, my people

I'm trying to write Sam into the story, too, so if you guys have any suggestions, I'd really appreciate it! Not to mention, if you have a favorite MCU character, let me know so that I can add them in, too.

Till next time, folks.

Hi-dee-diddly-dum-ti-dum-ti-day!


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

When Ali found herself keeled over her work desk at three in the morning, half finished with a project that was due three days ago, she knew some changes had to be made. Either she was going to quit her job (hello to you, too, student loans) or she was going to have to wire her body differently.

That was why she started getting up at God-awful hours to run.

Townville was a lot of things. Filled with healthy people was not one of them.

She ran to the nearest park and forced herself to jog for the next five miles before she noticed she was alone in the park and could therefore do whatever the hell she wanted. Whatever the hell she wanted apparently entailed throwing herself sunny side down under the nearest tree and falling asleep, which she did. She was woken by someone poking her with something sharp in the small of her back.

"Ow, Christ," she grumbled, spitting out a mouthful of grass and turning over to see who it was. A fit black man dressed in running clothes and Men in Black sunnies was poking her with a stick and jumped visibly when she moved.

"Oh, hey," he said casually, as if he hadn't just mistaken her for a cadaver or whatever. "I just thought-." He changed tactics mid-sentence. "Hey, are you okay?"

"Peachy," she groaned, rolling over onto her back. "Thanks for waking me up, Mr. Sandman."

"It's… wow, that's actually not a terrible first guess," the man grunted, helping her onto her feet. "It's Sam. Is that – are you Ali Valenteri?"

"I," Ali said eloquently and took a step back, completely awake. "No-o?"

"It is!" Sam said victoriously. "From school – Sam Wilson, from Quill University, remember?"

Ali took a close look at him and gasped dramatically.

"Beer belly Sam!" she squealed, bounding forward and clasping him on the hand. "I mean, you were, but look at you now! No wonder I didn't recognize you – you clean up good, Wilson."

"I do, don't I?" Sam said proudly, holding his arms up for her to get a good look. "Shall I do a spin?"

"Hell yes, good sir," Ali agreed. Sam did several spins for her enjoyment. Ali laughed till her stomach ached.

"Do you need a ride to work or whatever? I'm heading downtown anyway," Sam offered as they made their way out of the park.

"Yeah, sure," Ali agreed. "What have you been doing lately, Sam? I thought you went to medical school or something."

"Biomedical engineering, actually," he corrected, leading her to a Jaguar that was surely not his. It was, according to his spiffy car keys which opened the car without him doing much anything.

"You clean up _good_, Sam," Ali noted as she took a seat. "What do you do in biomedical engineering, then?"

"Prosthetic work, mostly," Sam explained. "And I design some recuperative physiotherapy programs. What are you doing lately?"

"I – well, get this," Ali said, laughing abashedly. "I do web and graphic design for Barton Papers."

Sam burst out laughing despite himself and Ali chuckled ruefully along. "Imagine that," Sam said good-naturedly. "We all thought you were going to be the next avant-garde _thing_, like veganism or whatever."

"Yeah, well, veganism is for asshats and so is avant-garde," Ali sighed.

"Which is what matters," Sam agreed. "Hey, I know a really good donut shop just around the corner here. Wanna get a bear claw and some coffee?"

"That sounds," Ali said, remembering her diet, "fabulous, actually. I'm starving."

They had fun picking out donuts and Sam treated her, since he was now this up-and-coming prosthetic engineer bigshot. He dropped her off at work and helped her juggle her phone, the donuts, and the coffee – she'd gotten her pocketless workout pants from a telemarketing channel, and the woman in the TV had had pockets. Sam quickly added his number on her phone before handing it over. Ali, who had no hands, took her phone in her mouth, which cracked Sam up.

"Call me," he said as he walked back to the driver's seat.

Ali said something downright poetic, like, "Mmmhmhhhhmmmshhsmem."

Sam was laughing again as he drove off.

From the third floor window, Bucky Barnes snapped the handle off a mug filled with hot coffee with his prosthetic arm, which was designed by one Sam Wilson. The coffee spilled on Steve, who yelped and would have destroyed Bucky if Peggy hadn't hurried over with a wet kitchen cloth. Bucky didn't notice.

* * *

"I bring offerings of peace," Ali announced to the Design team and popped the box of donuts on their only free counterspace. Mantis, who looked as though she might have woken up at the sound of Ali's voice, and Luis, who had definitely woken up to the scent of donuts got up and stumbled across the office to the donuts. Apparently falling asleep at weird places was definitely a Barton Papers thing, or at least a Design team thing.

Ali went and changed clothes in the bathroom while her friends de-zombified themselves with sugar and carbs and returned too soon to be spared from seeing Mantis try to cram two different donuts down her gullet at the same time. She decided to maybe get a start on work while tasting her plain black coffee (yuck).

"Download anymore porn lately?" Bucky asked over her shoulder. At the sound of his voice Ali jumped, burned her entire esophagus, and splashed coffee down her blouse and on her keyboard.

"Shit!" she hissed, sounding like death and Satan and Gollum all in one as she coughed and jumped up and down and shed her blouse like it was a hot potato. She reached for the tissue box nearby and knocked over her coffee for good. Ali swore for a very long time in a very hoarse voice, even as she mopped it all up.

For fuck's sake, she had only gotten one sip.

She noticed all of her stuff on the floor a moment later – Bucky had had the foresight to save her papers, and more importantly, her bear claw.

"Sorry," he muttered, looking a little alarmed and chagrined.

"It's not a problem," Ali snapped back, trying to wipe down the coffee and spreading it further. She was relishing the feeling of the coffee slowly cooling in her tank top and bra with a scowl.

"Dude, you really shouldn't sneak up on people like that," Luis said past three different donuts, making no move to help. Ali understood what he was saying, no problem. Bucky probably couldn't.

He got the general gist, though.

"Sorry," he said. "Should I, maybe I should come back later?"

"Yeah, maybe you should," Ali said, reaching the bottom of her tissues. She swore again, long and quiet.

When she turned around, Bucky was gone.

Despite the coffee mishap earlier in the day, everything went quite smoothly during the day. The Design team was quietly sullen and therefore highly productive, and Ali turned in her project four days after it was due and three days earlier than expected. She spent the rest of her day in her crop hoodie (which was alright with her super high-waisted rib-hugging workout pants but not suitable with her normal slacks) and trying to hide her midriff from the rest of the world.

She called Sam during lunch.

He laughed at her story and invited her out to dinner.

"Sure, why not," she agreed, as she tried to get the coffee stain out of her blouse front. "I'm sure my blouse will be dry by then."

It wasn't, but she wore it anyway, since the only alternative was letting Sam get acquainted with her belly button. He laughed for a full three minutes, leaned against his Jaguar, while Ali tried hard to scowl disapprovingly at him. It was impossible.

"C'mon, Tweetie bird," Sam said, reverting to his college-times nickname for her, "let's go."

"Oh," Ali laughed, appalled, "is that how it is?"

"That's how it is," Sam laughed back, opening the door for her.

"Not again, Buck," Steve sighed from the third floor kitchen as Bucky's prosthetic hand snapped off the handle of another mug.

* * *

My, oh my, has it been a while.

Glad to be back.

Hopefully, this time my writer's block will stay gone for good.

R&R, my good people. :-)


End file.
